What We Treat

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reports 95,000 people die every year from alcohol abuse. That works out to around 261 deaths each day. These deaths include everything from alcohol overdoses and DUI incidents to deaths caused by diseases, falls and even violence.

Heroin belongs to perhaps the most dangerous and addictive family of drugs there is: opioids. In 2019, almost 50,000 people died from opioid-related overdoses, reports the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC).

After alcohol and tobacco, cannabis is the most widely consumed drug in the United States. According to the most recent Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) survey, over 48 million Americans reported using it during the past year.

“Drug abuse” doesn’t just describe illicit drug use. Any time someone uses a drug outside of its purpose or the instructions of a healthcare provider is engaged in drug abuse. Taking a drug when you don’t need it, giving a pill to a friend who’s stressed, deliberately taking a larger dose … all these behaviors qualify as drug abuse.

The festival/rave/club scene has had a long association with various synthetic drugs. Used by partygoers to enhance their experience, many of them walk a tightrope without realizing it. First, a lot of synthetic drugs like molly, ecstasy/MDMA, GHB and others have nasty side effects. Secondly (and far more dangerous) is the fact that there is no such thing as quality control when it comes to synthetic drugs.

Inhalant abuse – the sniffing of fumes from household products, gas, glue, and other solvents – has been a way of escape for troubled people as long as these products have been available. Worse, these chemicals are abused most often by children in their early teens. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), most inhalant abusers are younger than 25. Among school-age teens, NIDA says eighth graders abuse inhalants more often than high school sophomores or seniors.

Once the domain of 1%-er bike gangs, methamphetamine is now well-known … along with the violence and crime which often surround it. And yet, meth still pulls people in. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s 2019 annual poll, 2 million Americans said they used the drug during the past year.

Parties, glamour, the rich: When you think about who uses cocaine, that’s probably what comes to mind. It’s probably not the other side of the coin: urban communities devastated by crack cocaine use, the horrifying violence associated with the cocaine trade or the environmental and human exploitation involved in its manufacturing.